was flirtatious, provocative, and asser- tive.

In order to devise a suitable treat- ment for her unusual

disorder, Eve's ther- apists attempted to discover as much about her past and present life problems
as possible.

The case study is very important in the investiga tion of psychological disorders. The woman pic
tured here was the subject of the famous case study, The Three Faces of Eve. The four paint ings
shown here were each done by a different personality

her childhood, family, schooling, hob- bies, love relationships, career, and so forth. The psychologist
then composes a case study describing how the patient's difficulties arose, how he or she copes with
these difficulties, and what can be done to help the patient.

An example of a case study is the book The Three Faces of Eve (1957), writ ten by two therapists
named Thigpen and Cleckley. Eve was the pseudonym for a woman living in Georgia who had a se
vere psychological disorder that mani- fested itself in a multiple personality. Most of the time Eve
would show a shy, cautious, and inhibited personality called Eve White. At other times she became
an other personality, Eve Black. Eve Black

A second major use of the case study is in teaching, as a means of illustrating ideas and relationships.
For example, in chapter 2 we will see that people with damage to the frontal lobes of the brain
generally lack foresight and become im. pulsive and irritable. This generalization is then illustrated in
a case study of a man who survived an accident in which an iron bar passed through his frontal
lobes. The psychologists John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner used the case method to great
advantage in a famous study known as "The Case of Little Albert." Watson and Rayner wished to
illustrate how fears and phobias could be viewed as learned responses. They accomplished this by us
ing principles of learning to make two- year-old Albert fear a white rat. This fa mous case is discussed
more fully in chapter 6.

Third, the case study is also an im- portant research tool. In research, the case study is used primarily
to suggest hypotheses, or propositions about cause- and-effect relationships. Case studies pose
questions, but they do not answer them. Thus, in scientific terms we say that case studies generate,
but do not confirm, hypotheses. In order to test hy- potheses, we have to turn to other re- search
methods. This point is so impor tant that it bears repeating: a case study the psychological biography
of a person-is a rich source of research hy- potheses but is not a method of testing those
hypotheses.

Surveys

Often psychologists find it useful to go beyond studying particular individuals to investigating larger
groups. Of course, it is impossible to study masses of people in great depth, but psychologists and
soci- ologists frequently use the survey as a very effective way of measuring the atti- tudes and
behavior patterns of a group of people. Surveys are questionnaires, con-

10 Chapter One